South Korea resumes artillery drills near border with North after 6-year hiatus

PYEONGTAEK, South Korea — The South Korean military has conducted live-fire artillery drills near the border with North Korea for the first time in six years, and the first such action since lifting a ban on live-fire drills in June.

The artillery drill was conducted at an unspecified firing range less than three miles from the Military Demarcation Line, the border that divides the Korean Peninsula, according to a press release issued Tuesday by the South Korean military. The border is inside the 2.5-mile-wide demilitarized zone.

Numerous air and artillery ranges are scattered near the border with North Korea. U.S. and South Korean troops conduct exercises throughout the year at the 1,400-hectare Rodriguez Live-Fire Complex, about 25 kilometers south of the border.

Tuesday's artillery drill focused on South Korea's “fire response and readiness capabilities” in the event of North Korean provocations, the statement said. The military said it plans to conduct regular artillery drills in the region in the near future.

Last month, South Korea formally suspended a military de-escalation agreement with the North, which banned live-fire exercises along the border.

The Comprehensive Military Agreement signed by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and then-South Korean President Moon Jae-in in 2018 imposed several measures to reduce tensions on the peninsula, including suspending exercises and establishing no-fly zones along the border.

In November, South Korea partially suspended a provision of the agreement banning flights near the DMZ after the North successfully launched a spy reconnaissance satellite.

The move prompted North Korea to abandon the deal altogether and announce through its national news agency that it would deploy “more powerful weapons” to the border.

Since then, North Korea has fired more than a dozen ballistic missiles in eight separate days of tests. The communist regime last fired a short-range ballistic missile and an unspecified ballistic missile on Monday, according to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff.

North Korea has also sent more than 1,000 balloons carrying trash to the South since May 28, in retaliation against human rights activists who sent balloons carrying humanitarian aid and propaganda leaflets to the North.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol lifted the deal on June 4, citing Pyongyang's continued provocations. The suspension will remain in place “until mutual trust between the South and the North is restored,” the South's defense ministry said at the time.

South Korean marines recently conducted a live-fire exercise on June 26 on Yeonpyeong Island, near the northwestern maritime border with the North, using K-9 Thunder howitzers and Chunmoo multiple rocket launchers, the service said in a press release.